Holy Moley and welcome to episode 4-306 of the RunRunLive Podcast. Man it’s cold! I As I write this we haven’t been above freezing for a month and have had 6 feet of snow up here! I like winter as much as the next guy but I’m getting a bit weary of the continuous Blizzard-cane that is New England.

Since we talked last I did take trip to Atlanta and got some nice long runs in in Buckhead. I came back from dinner one night and said ‘to heck with it, I’m heading out!’ and ran from Buckhead all the way up Peachtree to midtown. I was out for a nice 1:45 minutes which is about a ½ marathon for me at an easy pace.

Everybody else was walking around in winter coats and hats and I was chugging along down the sidewalk in shorts.

Up here where I live I’ve been banished to the treadmill. It’s 12:00 noon when I’m writing this and it’s a sunny 10 degrees F with a nice stiff breeze. I have to put on so many clothes to run in that it’s like a whole load of laundry.

It’s super dangerous with the roads narrowed by drifting snow and the banks so high the drivers can’t see over them. You just have to pull out and pray. Yes I’ve been doing a bunch of treadmill running. That’s why I have a gym membership! Believe it or not, I ran over three hours on the treadmill last Sunday. It’s crazy.

But the days are getting longer. It will only be a couple weeks and we’ll be back out in the woods splashing through the melting mud and breathing in the good earth.

So, my friends, I see you sitting on the couch in your pajamas in front of a warm fire eating a large jar of Nutella with a spoon. You have to cut that out because we’re only months away from Beach season! Get up! Let’s go!

In today’s show we have another guest interview. Longtime friend of the show Greg Milbourne has an interview with one of his running friends Jed Carman. Jed had one of those near death exercise experiences that we all fear and turned it into fuel for his life.

There’s a lot to be learned from this conversation. Why does it take a big impact occurrence like this to get us to see how lucky we are and get us to really appreciate a life? This life is right there in front of you today (as you sit in your pajamas feeling sorry for yourself eating Nutella). We don’t have to wait for the firm touch of fate to shake us out of our reveries.

Greg and I have been corresponding since the beginning of the RunRunLive podcast many years ago. And since he’s a mental health professional, I’m pretty sure it’s part of some long term study on manic depressives.

In the running stuff section I’m going take a deep dive into some of the finer, veteran points on hydration and fueling. In the deep thinking section I’m going to talk about fierce conversations. Should be a great show.

We are 7 week’s out or so from the Boston Marathon. I’ve decided not to run another marathon in the intervening time. Too much going on. I’m not going to be the fastest runner but I’m going to have a hell of a base built up.

I have signed up for the Eastern States 20 Miler put on by Don Allison, who we’ve spoken to on the show a couple times. They fixed the bridge and we’ll be back to running the old course that starts in Maine, runs the length of New Hampshire and ends in Mass. Love that route. Let’s see if I can stay within myself and run it strongly.

Nice people among you have been trickling in donations for my Team Hoyt campaign. Keep it up! I have some ground to make up to make my goal. It matters. I give you my stunning good looks and brilliance, you give me donations for my Hoyt campaign, and Frankly, I think you’re coming out ahead on this deal! 

It’s hard to walk in the snow when it’s this deep. I had to dig a trench for the dog to get out and do his thing. I had to dig a tunnel to my wood pile. I had to dig a tunnel around the house so the Oil guy could deliver. I’m hoping all this shoveling is good for conditioning.

The good news is that the zombies get stuck and you can just whack ‘em on the head with the snow shovel.

Put that Nutella down. We’re at the end of another RunRunLive Podcast! This has been episode 4-306.

If you want to join us for the Groton Road Race on April 26th this year, but are unfortunately waylaid in some unfortunate place like Nome Alaska or Murmansk, it’s ok. I have set up a virtual race category so you can register, run with us in spirit and send us your time for the results. We’ll send you a bib and one of our super-popular ‘wearable art’ shirts, that are by popular demand on a high quality tech shirt this year.

The web site has all the details www.GrotonRoadRace.com

And if you’re thinking, ‘aww, shucks, Chris, you’re just shilling shirts.’ Then you’re missing the point. You need to go find a local race that you can get involved in. It’s a privilege and an honor to be able to work with the community and the high-quality people of the race committee to bring this wonderful event out each spring. It’s an opportunity for us to create something that we can be proud of that supports the things that we believe passionately in.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Speaking of giving back I’ve got a present for you. I want to give you a copy of my new book. It’s called MarathonBQ and it’s my manifesto on qualifying for and running the Boston Marathon over the last 20 years.

I’m proud of this book and I want you to read it and enjoy it. Here’s the deal. If you want a copy you can either join my email list, Make a donation to my Hoyt fund or leave me a book review on Amazon Kindle. If you think that’s something you’d be interested in doing shoot me an email and I will send you a copy. Simple as that.

You can see all the details at my lovely website www.MarathonBQ.com.

Rules of thumb

To take you out I want to geek out a little about ‘rules of thumb’.

Our lives are filled with rules of thumb. An apple a day. 8 hours of sleep. 8 glasses of water a day. 20 mile long runs. The 10% rule. These are all rules of thumb to give you a ball park answers to complex problems.

You have to be careful because rules of thumb are not specific to you as an individual.

In optimization science rules of thumb are called heuristics. People make up heuristics to simplify complex problems. For any specific individual for example, “What is the optimal amount of sleep I should get?” is actually a very personal and complex answer that changes with time and health and age. It’s too hard to solve so we default to the rule of thumb of 8 hours.

Our brains build heuristics, or gravitate to existing heuristics to find short cut solutions to these complex problems. Heuristics are valid solution approaches. They don’t find perfect solutions or the best solution but they get an answer quickly and it’s usually a feasible answer. It works. It’s the 80% fit. It’s the ‘good enough’.

Mixed in with these heuristics are old wives’ tales masquerading as rules of thumb. They seem to make sense but there’s no evidence either way. Don’t go out in the rain, you’ll catch a cold. I don’t know if that’s true or not but I love running in the rain.

My wife is full of these old wives’ tales, (heh heh), parading as rules of thumb that she inherited from her mother and were passed down from witch doctors in the forest 50,000 years ago.

My point is that when we are spouting these rules of thumb and similar tall tales we announce them as fact and that can get you in trouble as an athlete. What works for everybody may not work for you. You need to test out those assumptions on your own machine and see what works and adjust accordingly.

Or, to summarize, as they used to say in the 60’s “Question Authority” – in all its forms.

And as you are considering whether or not what you always believed to be true may or may not be I’ll see you out there.

Buenas Dias! Mi Amigos. I told you that early in my career I did a couple projects in Chihuahua Mexico, right? That was before it got a bit dicey with the los drugos down there. More innocent times.

So we made it to February! Old Man Winter has shown up with a vengeance up here in New England. It’s ok, I like winter. Or at least I can deal with it when it’s really only a couple months out of the year.

That’s one of the joys of living here is that you get 4 real seasons, but not enough of each to make them annoying. Makes us flexible and tough.

Since we last talked it’s been snowing almost every other day. Last weekend we got a cool 2-day blizzard that dumped 3 feet of snow. Since it was cold too, zero degrees Fahrenheit, it was that fluffy snow that is great for winter sports and fairly easy to move, but we got a lot of it.

It’s over Buddy’s head and he’s confined to a short path in the front yard. He’s got cabin fever and is quite bothersome. I took him for a walk during the blizzard but it was over his head and up to my thighs so we could only break trail for a couple hundred feet before we had to turn around.

I’ve been having to get most of my runs in on the treadmill which is not optimal.

After we last talked I ran the Derry 16 miler and felt pretty good. The weather was good at just around freezing. I took it super easy and ran/walked the big hills then closed it nicely in the last 5k. I ended up running around 2:17 and felt pretty strong. That capped a 53 mile week for me on 4 runs.

The following weekend I went out for a 3 hour easy run. I took it super easy and did loops around my house. I felt like I could keep going at the end so my base is good and strong. It’s a bit dismal with the snow and cold and darkness but you know how it is; the only way out is forward.

Besides, the cold weather slows the zombies down.

Thanks to those of you who threw me some donations for my Team Hoyt campaign for Running the Boston Marathon this year – I appreciate it.

Those of you who haven’t, now’s a good time. I still need your help. I’m only ¼ way to my goal. Come on now, I don’t ask you folks to buy t-shirts, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you give me a review on iTunes or vote for me in whatever podcast awards are the thing of the day. This isn’t a commercial venture for me, it’s a creative hobby. So, cough up the cabbage and we’ll call it even…quid pro quo Clarice…quid pro quo.

Today we have a most excellent show for you. I interview SherAnne Nelson who is the captain of a team that is going to take on the Patagonia Expedition Race next year which is a super hairy race in South America. It’s a run-bike-paddle-mountain climbing survival type thing. Hard core.

I feel like I could have done a better job with SheriAnne. I feel like I should have asked, “Are you nuts? Leavingyoru comfy life and family for this misadventure? How do you feel about that?“ but I didn’t.

Even with my love of a good adventure, I’d be terrified.

I haven’t been traveling and that always makes me a little itchy. But I’m getting a lot done, in between angsty episodes of over eating and over sleeping...But the days are getting longer and I’m hitting the road next week.

In section one I wrote a bit of a tongue in cheek piece about some of the myths surrounding marathon running that we have to watch out for. In section two we’ll talk about the philosophy of time.

So, keep on shoveling, but don’t shovel straight lines because as we all know evil spirits love straight lines and will follow them right to your door. Shovel crooked lines. It will confuse the walking dead too.

First and foremost I am a mom of 3 young beautiful children. I am a Fitness and Nutrition Coach that believes in helping people realized their untapped potential. I believe too many people go through life wondering if, and wishing they could do something magnificent. Everyone's "magnificent something" is different, mine just happens to be epic adventures.

Everything I do, I think about my children and the example I am setting for them. Setting goals is critical to being successful in life and I love to set big goals that make my heart beat a little faster and make me wonder if it is possible because I love nothing more than busting past that mental barrier. Anything is possible.

What I bring to the 2016 Patagonia Expedition Race Team is the desire to succeed. Once I set a goal I will do whatever it takes to accomplish it. The hope and inspiration that I bring to others when sticking through the thick and thin of an event brings me great pleasure. Not only do I want to accomplish my goals for me but for everyone else watching me. I want to be the name that comes off of people's lips when they say, "I didn't quit because of you."

The other attribute I will bring to the team is the ability to solve problems under pressure. I deal best when there is pressure, I have the ability to compartmentalize the situation and accomplish what needs to happen in order to move on. I have the ability to keep people calm and focused on the situation at hand.

Hey folks we have shoveled a crooked path to the conclusion of yet another RunRunLive Podcast. Episode 4-305 in the can!

I think we’re short on time so I’ll keep it brief.

When it gets really cold out I like to wear a balaclava. Unfortunately a couple years ago I lost my balaclava. Maybe one of you could knit me one? I hate to buy one because I we only need it 2 or 3 days a year and I know as soon as I get another one I’ll find the old one.

My wife in her Yogi Berra moments, (not the picnic basket bear – the catcher with a proclivity for malapropisms) always asks me if I’m wearing my baklava – which gives me a hilarious visual of having my head wrapped in Greek pastry.

The new book is getting typeset into a beautiful e-book by a nice gentleman in Pakistan – should be able to ship some promo copies next week. I have to get it converted to Kindle too so I can post it up on Amazon.

And remember If you haven’t donated a couple bucks to my Hoyt cause – now’s a good time!

We’ve got the Groton Road Race coming together for April 26th this year. I’m working to set up a virtual race category so folks can run it remotely. We’ll send you one of the super sweet tech shirts that we’re putting our ‘wearable art’ on this year.

http://www.grotonroadrace.com/

I was talking with my daughter last week. She had started a new job and was complaining that she didn’t sleep well because she had too many things going on in her head. This is another version of the Tetris problem.

You lie awake at night going over all the things you have to worry about and trying to fit them together in a way that makes sense. Your brain is working on that puzzle and can’t sleep until it gets resolution.

The way to address this problem is to get out a piece of paper or the equivalent handful of electrons, and write down all the things that are on your mind. You purpose here is not to solve the Tetris problem. Your purpose here is to capture all the bits so your subconscious knows that they are in safe keeping.

You do this before you go to bed and it allows your brain to take a break and sleep.